25: Why You Should Stop Having New Year’s Resolutions

00:06 - Michael Kummer (Host)

You're listening to the Primal Shift podcast. I'm your host, michael Kummer, and my goal is to help you achieve optimal health by bridging the gap between ancestral living and the demands of modern society. Get ready to unlock the transformative power of nature as the ultimate biohack, revolutionizing your health and reconnecting you with your Primal Self. Alright guys, welcome back to the Primal Shift podcast. I think this is going to be one of the shortest but also most helpful and beneficial episodes that I have ever recorded for this podcast, and we're going to talk about specifically what New Year's resolutions are actually worth making and how to stick to them, because most people a lot of people they have New Year's resolutions. They want to do something starting in the new year, and then they do it for maybe a day, a week, maybe a month, and then they are done with it and it was all for nothing. Even worse, though, once they realize their failure, that kind of sticks in their head. Whenever the brain, whenever you don't have a success, you want to do something and you failed, then that's something that might discourage you from trying again, or even change the perception of your capabilities, negatively impact your self-confidence and many other things. So it's incredibly important, I think, to set yourself up for success. And so here is the thing. Let's answer that question right away. What are the New Year's resolutions that are actually worth making? None New Year's resolutions are bullshit in my opinion. They're absolutely a waste of time and energy and effort. If you want to do something, if you want to improve your diet, your exercise regime, if you want to start exercising, if you want to start walking, if you want to make better choices, start making them today, right now. If you don't do that, if you can't do that, you're not going to be able to do it in the New Year either, at least not in a sustainable way. You might start it, but you're going to stop. I'm very confident of that. And so start right away. If you want to change your diet, change it right away. If today is Thanksgiving Day or whatever day it might be I don't know when you're listening to this episode and it's the most inconvenient time of the year, time of the day to start implementing those changes, that's what matters. That's when you want to make them, because if you can overcome those mental hurdles, everything is stacked against you changing your diet on Thanksgiving Day or on whatever, on your birthday, whatever the case might be. If you can actually push through and make the right choices, you're set up for success because you've just overcome the biggest hurdle you might ever have in continuing making better choices. If you don't start today, if you postpone it to New Year, whatever the case might be, you will likely fail, and so that's really my number one advice, and that's the strategy that I live by as well. 

03:14

Whenever someone asks me what are your New Year's resolutions, I'm like I don't have any, because whatever I wanted to implement, whatever I wanted to improve and do better, I'm already doing it. And there might be some cases where you cannot go all in. Maybe you're changing jobs next year and you want to take that opportunity, or it opens up more time for you to make some of the improvements that you wanted to make. That's perfectly fine, I get it. But start implementing something that's inconvenient and that's difficult right away, even if you cannot fully execute your plan or your strategy, but make meaningful progress right away. Get over the initial hurdle, get uncomfortable, push through the discomfort of making those changes and those improvements. It'll pay off a million times, and that's my advice for implementing and dealing with New Year's resolutions Now. 

04:09

I hope that you at least take the time to carefully think about that and see if that's something that you want to try. I promise you, if you do it today, if you start making better choices today and don't wait until the New Year, it'll be much more successful. Your brain will thrive on the reward and will want to do it again. The brain is a sucker for the results of success when things go right, all of those hormones that get released when you actually accomplish something, when something positive happens. You want to leverage that. You want to start right away and set yourself up for success, and you don't have to wait until the New Year to do that Now. With that, we're going to wrap it up. As told you, it was a very short episode, but I really think that's useful advice. That's the one I live by and it's been working incredibly well for me and for anyone who has followed the same strategy. So I hope I'll hear and see you in the next episode. Thank you for watching.